MHI Annual Conference – Roadmap Discussion
We’re being written about!
Dan Gilmore from SCDigest moderated a panel at the 2016 MHI Annual Conference in Tucson, AZ, and when their crew got back, they liked the conference and discussions so much they decided to write about it. You can read both articles here and here, but I’ll give you a quick rundown of them both.
First some background. The panel was organized around the Materials Handling Roadmap. Originally released in 2014 and currently being updated, the Roadmap presents an overview of the issues and technologies that will affect logistics, material handling, and supply chain in the near future.
The Roadmap is being updated in meetings held around the country where practitioners talk through a variety of issues that then gets synthesized and distilled into the Roadmap. The new edition will feature themes of workforce issues, technology, the consumer, and infrastructure. SCDigest decided to break up their reporting into four articles that mirror those themes. So far we have workforce and technology.
In relation to workforce, the panel discussed things like the blue/white collar divide and the current talent crisis that is happening as supply chain adapts to new trends and technologies. Because of emerging technologies and career paths, not as many people want to work in supply chain any more, either on the blue or white collar side. Of note is the truck driver shortage crisis. New mandates and, again, other career paths create a high turnover rate for drivers. Panelists suggested that logistics managers need to prepare now for the predicted shortages and find solutions that help both workers and the company bottom line.
The next article outlined the discussion on supply chain technology that occurred in the panel. An interesting trend that emerged from the Roadmap update discussions was that practitioners wished for more technology that was “learning” technology – meaning is could change on its own as business changed.
Automation and robotics are also becoming more likely to be the solutions for labor shortages faced in the workforce. Additionally, artificial intelligence and management of data, information, and decision making through algorithms are becoming more and more common. Companies, at this point, shouldn’t really dismiss any technologies immediately. While there may still be barriers for some technologies, such as self-driving trucks, that doesn’t mean they don’t have potential.
For a more in depth read of the discussion, you can check out the articles: workforce and technology. MHI holds its Annual Conference and Spring Meetings annually to bring together supply chain professionals in discussions to help grow the industry. MHI also hosts a yearly trade show (ProMat in odd years, MODEX in even years) that holds hundreds of educational sessions to help keep attendees informed and on the cutting edge. ProMat 2017 will be held April 3-6, 2017 at Chicago’s McCormick Place. For more information visit ProMatShow.com.
